Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-07-14
THE CENTENNIAL HISTORY OF OHIO.
BY W. w.FARRASD rKLcH.
lcopwIghtsd. All rights reserrsd,l

was formed anu fenuefou n. ~. haS,to'iOH
pot VoIney's theory was that the Ohio wa
once barred up, and burst its barriers littl
bv little, and in the course OF ages wa
drained. The drainage exposed, first. tn
nIains; then the bottom lands for the use o
man. The receding of the waters from tn
ancient shores of the Muskingum, Tuscar
awas and Scioto formed what are termed tn
frst, second and third stages, or flats. Prof
Volney says that in 1876 the spring freshet o
the Great Miami caused that stream to form
one with the st. Mary, and that he passeS
O,e- one ~ !, boat from the Great Miami, which
emnties into the Ohio, to the other, which
trand toward Lake Erie. The Muskingun
in that dav communicated by means OF tht
Tuscarawas. its most northerly branch. witt
tha Cuyahoea, which flows into Lake Erie
In yolnev's day, boats passed from the Ohio
to lake Erie with very short portage by
land. if any, and this point was IN what II
now Portage county.
Says Schoolcraft: "May we not suppose ..
barrier to have once existed across tne love-
Mississippi, converting its valley INTO an I'm,
mense interior scar" Are not the grea,
Northern lakes the remains OF sucn sea-
MID not the demolition of this barrler across
fine mississippi enable this poweriuI St,eanl
- carry its hanks, as it manifestiy mas oone,
a hundred miles into the Gulf OF Mexico. IN
that case, says Prof. Priest, II al tnat sPace,
now the Gulf of Mexico. was then alow tract
of country, as its shores are now, !, M Was
overwhelmed, while on the other hand, all
that vast expanse of land in Ohio ana oiher
States between the Gulf and the Lakes was
drained by degrees, as Is shown aiong 'ne
ancient shores of our rivers" -,
prot Nevberry traces the water shed,
dividing the basin of Lake Erie from the
waters Of the Ohio, as forming "a range OF
highlands that slope by long and easy descent
to the Ohio. The trough of the Ohio IS e1-
cayated in a plain, and the somewhat NrlK-
inc features which it presents are all thA re-,
sult of the erosion of this plain, which, still
unbroken, forms the larger part of our area;
north fine Ohio, the plateau has been excavat-
ed To form the broad valleys OF the Miami,
the Scioto and the Muskingum."
The difference in the two slopes OF the
water shed are accounted for thus: After the
Ice had retired from the Southern part OF the
State the lake basin was still occupied Dy a
GLACIER which reached far beyond the present
lake basin; after the ice had melted and left
ali Ohio the water for ages covered all north
Of this great divide, which became the
Southern shore of this great fresh water sea,
nov occnpied by the great lakes. The south
ern alone of the great divide was meanwhile
exposed TO surface erosion, and covered more
deeply with earthly sediments. The ONO
river and its tributaries have been running
in nearly the same valleys they now occupy
ever since the glacial age, II NOT since .ne
present day were not hence formed by a
comet impinging again at the fair face of our
globe: Int they are the remains OF melting
GLACIERS. That also accounts for their being
fresh. and not salt water. Now, if man was
driven from the polar regions (Which between
the Carbonlferous Age and the Glacial Period
was a mild summer cline perpetuallyT 1t Is
natural to suppose that he at Last found
home and lodgment on this great divide run
ming through the State, the Ohio Watershed.
This will account for the Cave Dwellers on
the CuyahoQa river, ages after, when this
inland sea had dwindled to the present lakes.
There they lived and died in their caves, long
before the advent of the Mound Builders; the
Mound Builders evidently did not live in
caves, hence these Cave Dwellers were of
different race, and lived perhaps ages before.
THE pEopL1sG OF THE OHIO VALLEY.
Mr.. Atwater, the antiquarian, in his work
on the "Antiquities of America" holds to
the opinion that the people who erected the
stone-altars, earth-works and fortifications,
commenced their work at the head OF the
great northern lakes. thence along their
borders to the State of New York, thence in
a southwestern direction following down the
Ohio and Mississippi valleys, thence to
Mexico, where they had their central seat of
power and sent forth colonies into Central
and Sonth America.
Later deductions would reverse this theory
by putting the cradle of the human race in
Atlantis, as already mentioned. 1t IL pro-
bable that some such affinity can be establish
ed between the Atlanteans, so called, and the
Central American tribes, but the origin OF
the North American races is involved in still
greater mystery. Ignatius Donnelly says,
iIIf my theory of their Atlantean origin is
correct it might have been ten or twenty
thousand years ago. 1t is believed by many
chat the sHue Hue Tlapalan' of the Tolteos,
(the old, old red laud.) was the Mississippi
valley. -
In the south they have q tradition Of sub
merged country, overwhelmed by the ele-
ments in ages long past, It Is believed tnat
caused the submergence of this drowned
land, now at the bottom of the Gulf of
Mexico. It is also to be supposed that
Atlantis may have disappeared at the same
time, if not from the same causes.
One Legend says that when the nomadic
Indians, (our aborigines, SO called, or the red
men,) arrived about 700 years after the Hood
or 1440 B. @. (where such dates were dlscoy-
cred we can not imagine,) they found access
throuoh Asia and Europe to the Mediterran-
can, thence BY the Canary Islands over a
large continent the size of Africa stretching
from Africa to the West Indies. The sea now
known as the Gulf of Mexico did not exist,
but ALI that space was fruitful and prolific
land tits a geological fact that the West
Indies were once the outer fringe of the
American continent. as the Canary Islands
were Of the mythical Atlantic. But this theo-
ry of the coming of the red man Ia about as
absurd as the long held theory that America
was originally peopled BY the Lost tribes Of
Israel" It is said they weretaken north and
west about 1440 B. O., and came to this conn
try. Whether we can place any confidence in
any such mad hypothesis 1t IS not the pro-
vince of this work to discuss, as they are be-
yond the real Of authentic and still subject to
conjecture; and there is no more dangerous
expedient than to make history out Of theory.
Let as rather stick to geological facts which
demonstrate clearly that the first inhabitants
of this land came from the North just after
the glacial age or flood. We may take Bishop
Wafren's idea of the Garden of Eden at the
North Pole with due allowances, or discard
IL as we please, but it is evident that the first
men on Ohio soil were from the north, and
preceded the Mound d-builders by many CEN
turies. If then the Garden of Eden was at
the North Pole, as we shall say for sake of ar
gument, then it is evident man before the
glacial era lived there; and man was driven
out Of the Garden of Eden by the Glacial
Period.
wINcHELL AND LELAED's THEORIES.
A daring hypothesis names North America
as the real cradle of the human race, from
whence the European races escaped to the
British Isles In canoes, leaving behind them
many analogies In language and myths. Mr..
Charles G. Leland claims to have f0und in
the mythology Of the Indians of Main and